A long time ago I adopted my method of detachment from a true Master, Morrie Schwartz which I learned of from the Book Tuesday's with Morrie, while re-reading this book I was taught anew;. When one of my padawans asked me how I detached, I tried to explain it, but nothing could explain it like the Master I speak of could, so I will post the excerpt for all to read.
The small horrors of his illness were growing,
and when I finally sat down with Morrie, he was
coughing more than usual, a dry, dusty cough
that shook his chest and made his head jerk
forward. After one violent surge, he stopped,
closed his eyes, and took a breath. I sat quietly
because I thought he was recovering from his
exertion.
"Is the tape on?" he said suddenly, his eyes still
closed.
Yes, yes, I quickly said, pressing down the play
and record buttons.
"What I'm doing now," he continued, his eyes still
closed, "is detaching myself from the experience."
Detaching yourself?
"Yes. Detaching myself. And this is important-not
just for someone like me, who is dying, but for
someone like you, who is perfectly healthy. Learn
to detach."
He opened his eyes. He exhaled. "You know what
the Buddhists say? Don't cling to things,
because everything is impermanent."
But wait, I said. Aren't you always talking about
experiencing life? All the good emotions, all the
bad ones?
"Yes. "
Well, how can you do that if you're detached?
"Ah. You're thinking, Mitch. But detachment
doesn't mean you don't let the experience
penetrate you. On the contrary, you let it
penetrate you fully. That's how you are able to
leave it."
I'm lost.
"Take any emotion-love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I'm going through, fear and
pain from a deadly illness. If you hold back on
the emotions-if you don't allow yourself to go all
the way through them-you can never get to being
detached, you're too busy being afraid. You're
afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief. You're
afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.
"But by throwing yourself into these emotions,
by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over
your head even, you experience them fully and
completely. You know what pain is. You know
what love is. You know what grief is. And only
then can you say, `All right. I have experienced
that emotion. I recognize that emotion. Now I
need to detach from that emotion.'"
Morrie stopped and looked me over, perhaps to
make sure I was getting this right.
"I know you think this is just about dying," he
said, "but it's like I keep telling you. When you
learn how to die, you learn how to live."
